The International Trade Administration (ITA) strengthens the competitiveness of U.S. industry, promotes trade and investment, and ensures fair trade through the rigorous enforcement of our trade laws and agreements. ITA works to improve the global business environment and helps U.S. organizations compete at home and abroad. ITA supports President Obama’s recovery agenda and the National Export Initiative to sustain economic growth and support American jobs.

ITA is organized into four distinct but complementary business units:

U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service — Promotes U.S. exports, particularly by small and medium-sized enterprises, and provides commercial diplomacy support for U.S. business interests around the world.

Vietnam is a true emerging market, offering ground floor and growing opportunities for U.S. exporters and investors. Vietnam’s economic growth rate has been among the highest in the world in recent years, expanding at an average about 7.2 percent per year during the period 2001-2010, while industrial production grew at an average of about 12 percent per year during the same period.

Vietnam registered GDP growth rate of 6.7 percent in 2010 and was one of only a handful of countries around the world to experience such levels of economic growth.

Moving forward, inflation remains a main risk to Vietnam’s economy, which the Government of Vietnam (GVN) is addressing by balancing growth targets with price stability measures. This challenge will not be easy to meet. Nevertheless, the GVN has confirmed its commitment to economic growth and is targeting 2011 GDP growth at 6.5 percent.

The momentum and direction generated by the entry into force of the U.S.–Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) in 2001 transformed the bilateral commercial relationship between the United States and Vietnam and accelerated Vietnam’s entry into the global economy with Vietnam joining the WTO in January of 2007. Since the BTA, bilateral trade has increased over six-fold from $2.9 billion in 2002 to $18.6 billion in 2010.

Searching the web for contracts can be extremely frustrating. If you are not familiar with the process a simple search can present a list of contracts that can take days to review. How can you simplify the effort while still keeping it effective?

Tip 1: Make sure you are listed on the Central Contract Registry (CCR) www.ccr.gov. You cannot bid on solicitations unless you are listed on this website.

Tip 2: Check out government agencies “Wish List”. The “Wish List” is just that, a list of project/contracts that, if the money is available, they would like to purchase. The wish list is also known as a Presolicitation List. The items on the wish list may or may not ever be let for bid, but by watching this list you can maintain an awareness of planed projects or potential contracts.

Tip 3: Use www.FedBizOpps.gov. This site lists almost all contracts over $25,000 being solicited by the federal government. There are three or more ways to search on this site. The first method is to search “ALL”. You may do this once just to get a feel, but it can easily cause information overload, too much information to be useful.

With experience you will find the best method is to search FedBizOpps by keyword and enter your product/service or zip code. Using this method you can find all solicitations for “cheese”, or “computers” or “socks” or “food services” or whatever you may wish to sell/provide to the government. You can most easily limit the listing of interested contracts by using the keyword search.